


you bleed the night without a sound

by marchosias



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, i just wanted to write some flowery prose abt my boys being narsty, king killing adventures in rome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:53:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29514909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchosias/pseuds/marchosias
Summary: Saxon gold could buy one of the biggest villas on the river, but it could not buy the death of the past.The war-thegn and his drengr cast upon the lands beyond England, to right a wrong.
Relationships: Eivor/Leofrith (Assassin's Creed)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	you bleed the night without a sound

**Author's Note:**

> i very much just wanted to write some prose abt leofrith finally making it to rome and killing burgred and hey wow! here comes eivor too! still working on my main series but this insisted to be written in the meantime so here we are~ enjoy the passive voice~~

The guards were dispatched silently, a blade opening their throat and arms catching the body that fell. the drengr worked like a shadow, feet schooled into silence against the stone. Blond braids were gathered beneath a hood and the powerful body ensconced in soft darkness. The drengr pressed himself against a wall, sure that the last of the guards had fallen.

  


Then, like a storm, the war-thegn moved before the side door, a big hand brushing the drengr’s side as he went. The door was kicked in with all the force of the war-thegn’s might and will. Inside he strode, the drengr following at a crouch like a cloak, trailing behind the war-thegn.

  


Long was the journey from the hills of England, crossing the channel and journeying over the rolling lands and rivers of the mainland country. They stole through the countryside as foxes, never lingering in one camp too long to alert the sparse hamlets. The noise and din of Rome was welcome, enveloping them in anonymity – the tall Saxon and the Norse at his shoulder passing unnoticed amongst the bustling crowds.

  


There needed to be a closure, an end; the name in this bowl had to be burned and the bowl shattered upon the stones.

  


For all the kings that had to be made to get to this point, one needed to be undone.

  


The blade of the war-thegn called to him every night for blood, howled for absolution. The war-thegn brought himself before the drengr night after night, pressed his face into the stomach of the other and murmured his plans, planted the ideas beneath the skin of the drengr and sealed them deep inside with the hot press of his mouth, the roll of his hips. And in turn, the drengr surged against him every night hence - answering, supplicating, delighting in their conspiracy. The taste of blood was shared like a gift between them.

  


Their covenant was sealed in the silk of the blackest night and beneath the pale of the fullest moon. Teeth on skin, knees in dirt. Gasps muffled into the grass and the sweet perfume of the night-blooming flowers spilling between them.

  


_Glory, would be writ unto their holy books._

_Glory, would be writ upon their lips._

_Glory, would be writ unto the wheeling stars._

_  
_

Like a shade did the war-thegn descend upon the villa of the king. Without regard for silence now, relics were knocked from their places. The door was barred. The drengr fed a rug into the fireplace, a swan-road to burn ablaze and erase any trace of their infiltration.

  


Voices sounded; the king roused from sleep now. The terror of the cornered rabbit aroused the wolfblood of the war-thegn.

  


The war-thegn sniffed him out.

  


Looming in his doorway, there was no need for introduction. No need for names. Back he had come, resurrected from the banks of a river of blood by a valkyrie who danced on the edge of his sword, lifting him from the hell he would be thrown into, should the king have had his way.

  


The king’s terror made the air vibrate, inscribing a grin onto the drengr’s face. This deed was for the war-thegn alone, the blood here was for him to spill. The drengr closed the door behind them and made his post, ready to bear witness to the war-thegn’s verdict. He could taste the wrath of the war-thegn and the raw beauty of it sent a tremble through his body.

  


The pleading of the king only brought a laugh to the war-thegn, the glint of his dagger an undeniable third guest in the shaft of moonlight from the window - the same full moon that smiled down upon them in the tall grasses one cycle before. The same moon that witnessed their sweetest coupling, witnessed here their greatest deed.

  


Witnessing with not the eyes of a warrior but the eyes of a skald, the drengr admired the liquid way the war-thegn moved on his feet. For the bearish height and breadth of this man, he danced like a raven on the wind – the drengr captivated by his movements, even here.

  


The king made a move to escape but he was caught easily by the war-thegn’s strong arm and tossed to the floor of his bedroom. For all that the drengr thought he would draw this out, the war-thegn proved him wrong – his movements were quick. The sink of the dagger into the king’s heart and the resultant aborted gasp of the king as he realized the same as the drengr – he expected to be made a spectacle. And to subvert the king’s wishes, to unceremoniously take him from this realm as quick and decisively as the war-thegn did, was entirely the war-thegn’s right. And it suited him. As most things the war-thegn touched, they bent their heads towards him, they remade themselves to suit him.

  


The knife-hand of the war-thegn was drenched in the blood of the king. The king was lifted from the floor easily by the war-thegn. Suspended now by the front of his nightshirt clenched in the war-thegn’s huge fist, the king grappled weakly at the war-thegn’s hard-set face. The war-thegn did not flinch, nor make any indication of being harassed by the dying king. His knife found the wound once again and pressed inside slowly, a matching sneer blooming across the face of the war-thegn.

  


Paid was the price of betrayal in the hot rush of king's blood. _Glory, glory._

_  
_

When the king went limp and struggled no more, he was dropped easily. The war-thegn wiped his hands clean on the pristine sheets that would become ash in the span of an hour. And it was with hands scrubbed of the unclean blood did the war-thegn cross to the drengr’s eager arms, embracing him tightly. The drengr was enveloped, lifted into the war-thegn’s grasp. Powerful legs encircled armored hips and the war-thegn’s teeth found the drengr’s throat.

  


Though the way was smoothed with careful preparation, their coupling this time was slow, unburdened, and yet so heavy. The drengr was supported and held, pushed and possessed by the war-thegn against the wall of the king’s bedroom. They moved with one mind, two bodies hewn into one. The high of the kill, of the summation of his mission had loosed the limbs of the war-thegn, had sent his free laugh unbidden into the drengr’s shoulder. Their completion found them both gasping into the mouth of the other, the fist of heat gripping them both tight and sending electricity through them both.

  


The drengr was lowered to his feet with care, the war-thegn stooping to place him. The kiss between the two was soft, the gentlest brush. The brutality that surrounded and molded the two of the warriors did not reflect between them. It was only with the touch of a newborn lamb did the drengr touch his war-thegn, and similarly unto the drengr. It was only at the drengr’s urging did the war-thegn’s touch ever turn into something rough, commanding, and it was always answered with a blessing.

  


The two shadows stole out the window of the now-smoldering villa, edging towards the docks and away into the countryside. The journey back to their home would be an afterthought, the war-thegn looking back once, only once -

  


_He thinks of Lot’s wife, shuddering in her grave -_

_  
_

but a pillar of salt did not become him, rather the burning of the beautiful villa in the delicate pink morning light was a beacon of his triumph.

  


The drengr bid him this moment for reflection then grasped for his hand, tugging him gently into the fold of trees before the river. Gone would they be before the blaze was extinguished, and entirely gone from the country before a search would be raised for the king’s killers.

  


And, days later, ensconced in the starry night of some thickly-forested wood, only miles from the dock where their raiders waited to take them to England, they would make their last camp upon the strange mainland. The drengr would mount his war-thegn and take him deep, having him without shame in the light of the fire. The hands of the war-thegn found and traced the lines of the tattoos upon the drengr’s stomach. Firelight painted the drengr as the fierce angels the priests the war-thegn knew in a past life, prophesizing and lamenting and begging for salvation. The way his drengr moved and arched and moaned, comfortable in the open wilds of the forest was the war-thegn’s own salvation. No one could touch them – and it was only glory that passed between them, beneath the silky black sky. Only the eyes of the stars laid upon them.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! <3
> 
> title is from house of metal by chelsea wolfe bc best fic title format is lowercase song lyric


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